I’m happy to report that I’ve become an owner of a portrait lens that I coveted for several years now — Nikon AF-S Nikkor 85mm f/1.4G. Over the years I’ve read multiplereviews and saw a lot of images taken with this lens. But the price is quite steep, so we waited, pretty much since its release in August of 2010.

Portraiture is what this lens was made for. The focal length of 85mm is great for rendering faces in a flattering way and the maximum aperture of f/1.4 is perfect for separating the subject from the background and washing out said background into a milky smooth blur. This is my first 85mm prime lens and my first f/1.4 lens. I think it will solve a number of issues for me in certain situations.

I have a great manual 50mm that I love, but it’s not always ideal. First of all manual focus limits the number of quality shots I can take of Arosha — he is too quick. Also it makes me uncomfortable asking to take somebody else’s photo knowing that I’ll have to fiddle with focus for too long. Another issue is that it measures the exposure only at the center, making explaining to other people how to properly take a shot is close to impossible and is also a time constraint on when I’m using it.

All in all, I got the lens from B&H fairly quickly and had to exercise a great deal of patience before getting my hands on it — it was my New Year gift from Alёna and my parents. The lens itself is quite a lot bigger than my 50mm is. It also is quite heavy as it turns out. I saw the technical specifications on the lens beforehand, but it’s hard to know how it will feel until you actually touch it. It does pair up quite well with my trusty Nikon D700.

However nothing comes easy. Soon after I had a bit of a disappointment. When looking through some experimental shots I took I noticed that the lens exhibits an obvious front focusing issue. In simple terms when you try to focus on the eye you end with focus plain falling on the nose and eyes are not sharp. The issue becomes quite a bit less noticeable by stopping down to f/1.8, but if I wanted to shoot at f/1.8 I would’ve gotten a lens that costs 1/3 of the price of this one.

Luckily D700 allows one to performing auto-focus fine tuning. And while it’s something that becomes quite complicated for a zoom lens a prime is much easier and more practical. I did some quite unscientific testing and arrived to +9 adjustment on the scale of -20 to +20 with 0 being default. But to make a final decision of whether to keep it or try to exchange it I placed an order for LensAlign kit — something that I wanted to get for some time now anyhow. I also bought of copy of their FocusTune software. FocusTune1 in itself is a great tool allowing one to tune the lens not by eye and not from a single sample, but from a bulk of shots.

I took a large number of test sets — each set consisting of 100+ shots and actually ended up with fairly consistent test results2. The recommended value that I arrived at on multiple instances is +6. I also read that pretty much everyone of these lenses will need to be tuned due to variations between the bodies and lenses — which in reality are extremely small, so exchanging the lens is as much of a gamble as anything. On most lenses it will just not be noticeable, but when you deal with a long and bright lens — you want it to be very precise.

Either way — our testing at +9 produced some nice shots and we won’t know how well +6 does until we go out on the upcoming weekend and do some testing in the wild. But if practice agrees with theory — and I don’t see why it wouldn’t — the lens is a keeper.

FocusTune actually doesn’t need LensAlign target to work. It can be used with a number of targets that can be printed out by the end-user himself. [↩]

I will not go into detail of properly setting up for a good end results as the author of the system provides great info on his site. [↩]

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I’m a lucky new owner of a brand-new Nikon AF-S Nikkor 16-35mm f/4G ED VR lens. I want to share a couple of thoughts on how that came about, choice, acquisition and planned use.

Wide-Angle Decision

I mentioned earlier that there exists a possibility of us taking a trip to Grand Canyon in the near future. As I was looking through my old shots of the canyon taken with my old D70 camera — a lot of them were taken at 18mm (the widest I had — 27mm equivalent on full frame) and a lot of them feel kind of crammed — like there just wasn’t any more room left in the frame. Landscapes are the primary reason why I would want to own a good wide-angle lens.

There is always an alternative to using wide-angle lenses that could work in a lot of cases for landscapes. Just take several shots with a normal lens and then stitch them together in a panorama. However there are certain problems with that approach — taking an HDR shot for example would be much more complex. Using a long exposure filter such as Big Stopper would be it impossible.

And then there is a number of other types of photography that can be done with a wide-angle lens forcing a photographer to get much closer to the subject, thus changing the perspective — an interaction of the subject with the background.

Budget

I had my eye set on a prime Nikon lens for portraiture — 85mm f/1.4G — for a long time now. The problem of course is the fact that this particular lens costs $1,700, however all the reviews confirm that the lens is worth it. Or at least that was the case until Nikon released a new 85mm f/1.8G lens.

I read a number of reviews on the new lens and a lot of them show that it performs as well as its big brother in a lot of cases. It doesn’t have nano-coating which reduces the flares and it loses 2/3 of a stop as far as aperture goes. But the kicker is that it costs $499. Now that’s is a huge difference. For a professional photographer that 2/3 of a stop might be worth it, but I as an amateur just cannot justify paying an extra $1,200 for something that would be simply a nice-to-have at my level. I just can’t.

By settling with a f/1.8 lens I was able to free up a large chunk of change from the budget that was allocated for 85mm purchase towards the New Year.

Wide-Angle Lens Options

Choosing an actual lens from the available options was surprisingly easy. I was not considering any 3rd party choices as I am extremely happy with all my Nikkors. Out of available Nikon option there were really only two lenses that were in the final “competition” — 16-35mm f/4G and 14-24mm f/2.8G lenses. The older 17-35mm f/2.8D lens has been bested and at this point doesn’t make much sense.

To break it up I ended up picking out 16-35mm lens over 14-25mm lens for the following reasons:

It has filter thread, while the other one does not. Even thought 14-24mm can be outfitted with filter it becomes a huge expense on its own with the need of a special and expensive mounting bracket and much larger filters.

Cost — $1,139 vs $1,996.

Better flare control — the other one has a very spherical front element.

Not as wide, but bigger range — really nice thing to have for walking around, without constantly swapping lenses out.

Weight — 680g vs 969g for 14-24mm and 900g for 24-70mm.

VR II — Nikon’s lens stabilization system that promises 4 extra stops. Not really a factor for me, but I guess it’s nice to have.

The lens doesn’t let in as much light at f/4 as the other one does at f/2.8, but as far as landscape photography goes this is a non-issue at all, since most of landscape shots will be taken at least at f/8 and on a tripod. Even though 14-24mm is a superb lens and 16-35mm has a lot of distortion at 16mm (easily fixed in post), 16-35mm was clearly the best choice for me that offers great sharp results with a lot of versatility.

Buying The Lens

These days it seems that after doing all the research and making a decision, actually buying a Nikon lens is the hardest task of it all. There was no stock at B&H, Adorama, Amazon or any other vendors that I’m familiar with. The price at Adroma was at $1,159, at B&H it went up to $1,179 and there was still no stock and Amazon kept getting them 1 item at a time (returns?) and was pricing them at $1,259.

I saw a mention on one of the forums that Samy’s Camera has them in stock, but since I was unfamiliar with that store I decided not to risk it. Meanwhile I kept checking all the verified sources and ended up stumbling on a seller offering these up for sale through Amazon for $1,139. And what do you know? It was Samy’s Camera. They had 4.8 out of 5 stars rating with more than 2,800 votes in the past year.

Considering that it was the best price that I’ve seen and having the safety of ordering through Amazon I placed an order. The lens was shipped to me the same day and I received it soon after. I’ve done some minor testing within the confines of our apartment and I like how it handles and performs so far very much. Here is another good vote for Samy’s from this happy customer.

Now I just need to get outside an do more shooting and start learning to work with a wide-angle lens — I didn’t have one in a long time and for some reason I never used the one I did have for my DX camera. We’ll see how I do with this one.

Update: Now that a year has passed since this acquisition I have to report that it has been one of the best buys I’ve done in a while. It has became my most often used lens which has gifted me with a lot of great photographs.

I’ve stopped taking my 24-70mm lens with me on trips around the world. Now I typically pack my 16-35mm, 50mm and in certain cases 70-200mm.

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I’ve been thinking about putting more of my thoughts together on my new Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 AI-S manual focus lens for a couple of weeks already, but I wanted to provide a good number of sample shots along with it. I believe I have enough material now. A collection of photographs taken with this lens can be viewed in the posts tagged with 50mm f/1.2 tag.

The Feel

The first big surprise with this lens to me was its weight. My old Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens used to weight 156 grams. This one weights 360. When you take it out of the box you realize right away that you are holding something special.

The lens which was in production since 1981 is still made of all metal — black enamel over black anodized aluminum and stainless steel. All the markings on the lens are engraved and filled with paint. When you look through the lens at wide open you see a lot of glass and very thin lens walls. It’s an illusion caused by optics. It’s not really as thin as it appears.

Focusing ring is rubber covered metal. Each lens has a serial number engraved on the front of the focusing element. Numbers after 400,000 denote lenses produced after 2006. They are still made in Japan.

Manual Focus

This is the fastest lens that Nikon currently makes and the only available version is a manual focus one. There is no auto-focus. This makes it a specialty lens. Majority of people most probably are better of going with the latest 50mm f/1.4G lens or a very good and cheap 50mm f/1.8G or f/1.8D lenses.

I wasn’t sure how manual focus would work out for me as I never had a lens specifically made for focusing manually. I had very little luck focusing my old 50mm f/1.8D lens by hand. This lens’ focusing ring however can’t compare to any of the lenses made for AF. Even my $2,000 Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G lens’ focusing ring feels extremely cheap compared to this retro manual marvel.

The focusing ring movement is very smooth. The ring provides a very pleasant tactile feedback-resistance. When you rotate the ring fully you get a nice distinct ding sound and a dead stop of the ring — no play whatsoever. All this gives you an ability to be very precise and at f/1.2 it means everything.

However the best part for somebody as inexperienced with manual focusing as I am is the fact that D700 light meters and focus confirms through this lens just fine. What that means is that when I get the lens in focus it will show me a green dot on the LCD screen. If it’s not in focus it will show an arrow pointing left or right, telling me which direction to rotate the focusing ring in. And from experience it seems to be pretty accurate.

Having said all that it is close to impossible to use on fast moving targets like kids and animals. Nor Aroshka nor Shublik are photographable with this lens in most situations. Although with a little bit of practice now I do manage to catch Arosha’s eye in focus in time on some occasions. Also one must keep in mind that at minimal focusing distance of 50cm at f/1.2 the depth of field is under 7mm. So even if you do get focus confirmation, but you or your subject moves you will lose focus.

Overall it came out to be much less “scary” than I thought it would be and the lens is very much usable and fairly easy at that. And it will only get better with practice.

Performance, Rendering & Bokeh

The quality of bokeh and general image rendering is a very subjective topic and you should make that determination yourself by looking at the sample photographs. As for myself — I am pleased with the results.

Alёna was doubting my decision to buy a manual lens, but after looking at the results I can’t tell you how many times she has said that the photographs taken with it are top notch.

As for sharpness of the lens — I did not do any sciencific tests. Just by reaching f/2 lens seems to be alreading performing at its peak. Having said that I will say that I am very happy with the results starting right from f/1.2. A lot, if not majority, of my shots were taken wide open.

The only negative is the amount of purple fringing that the lens is producing wide open. It’s easy to fix in post-production, but some basic proficiency with Photoshop is required. Left uncorrected fringing will surely ruin the shot.

Conclusion

I’m very happy with my purchase. I’ve already taken several great photographs with it that I added to my portfolio. The fact that you have to manually focus the lens makes you think more about the composition which in turn makes you better with the craft of photography, instead of just pointing and shooting.

For most people one of the AF versions of 50mm will work better, but the artistic possibilities that this lens opens the door to are vast.

Article Illustrations

Most of the shots for this article were taken with my old (t)rusty Nikon D70. The LCD shots were taken directly through the viewfinder of D700, hence the “awesomeness” of the quality.

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It’s been raining for 5 days straight now. They are predicting it will keep raining for at least 3 more. But since I got my 50mm f/1.2 lens in the mail yesterday I’ve been itching to get out and shoot.

Today during the lunch break the sun peaked out from under the clouds. Alёna, Arosha, my dad and I jumped into the car and drove to the nearby Floyd Bennett Field (5 minute drive) for a 40 minute walk. I took a good number of shots and pretty much all of them came out great. I’m very very happy with the purchase at this point.

As soon as we got home it started raining again. Our timing was perfect. Here are some of those shots. All of these were taken at either f/1.2 or f/2.

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I can’t help but share my excitement over my newest photographic acquisition — Nikon Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 AI-S manual focus lens. I’ve been reading and looking at pictures of this lens for months now, drooling all over my keyboard.

On Friday, while looking at it yet again on B&H site, I impulse-bought it. It just couldn’t be helped any longer. It was delivered by UPS today to my office. And I’m holding it in my hands and still drooling. It is so nice.

Nikon has been making this lens in this exact form since 1981. It can still be bought brand new today. I’ll most probably end up making a more detailed post about it all in the coming days. Today I’m just posting 3 photographs. The last one is made with this lens at f/1.2. Look at that DOF.

Wow, f 1.2 – that’s something!! How’s the manual focus? I find that I can’t really focus well if I do it manually. It could be due to my poor vision or just inexperience, I don’t know. Pictures look amazing!

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Daniеl says:June 3, 2011 @ 12:45

Actually I’m trying to make myself to write down my observations on the lens so far. Now that you asked these questions I’ll try to do it sooner and will post it on the blog.

[...] Saturday, June 11, 2011Manual 50mm Lens Observations I’ve been thinking about putting more of my thoughts together on my new Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 AI-S manual focus lens for a couple of weeks already, but I [...]

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I decided to sell my DX wide angle lens — Sigma Zoom Super Wide Angle 10-20mm f/4-5.6D EX DC HSM for Nikon. I had it for a number of years now, but did not use it very often. Now that I’ve switched to FX format I do not use it at all. I’m planning to put the money towards new FX lenses.

The lens is in a pristine condition and comes with everything the new one came with — both end caps, lens hood, case, manuals and box. My price is $394. The new one sells for $477.

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I’m doing some experimenting with the light tent1 that Alёna got me for New Year and want to post some sample shots. I expected it to be a bit smaller when opened, because when closed it is no bigger than a standard mousepad. However after opening it the first time we have yet to figure out how to fold it back up.

Having a camera with a working comander flash (D70 clearly had some issues in its last days) and 2 remote flashes (Nikon SB-800 & SB-600 pair) makes taking shots of items amazingly easy. If last time I had to take literally hundreds of shots to get a decent one, the shots below I’ve gotten from 2-3 tries. These shots needed small level adjustment to blow out the whites or pull in the blacks and that was pretty much it.

For reflection I’m using a marble tile which has a lot of imperfections in it. I need to replace it with a simple piece of glass.

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This post is a place where I can refer people to about a really bizarre auto focusing issue that I’ve been having, without having to repeat it over and over again.

Introduction

I’ve been using D70 for over 5 years and I’ve taken about 50,000 shots. I’ve had D700 for 2 weeks before I exchanged it for the pricing reason1, and B&H shipped the same camera back to me and I haven’t noticed an issue. I first noticed the problem on the day that I received this camera and a lens for the 2nd time.

The Issue

In short I believe there is an AF problem that happens in very specific conditions. It also seems to me that this must be a defect with the camera, the lens, or both. It happened so that my test subject of choice was a sticker on a Peach Snapple bottle that was on my desk. This, in fact is the one and only item that I can replicate the issue on. Continue Reading

Nikon started a rebate program 2 weeks after my order that would save me $300 when I buy the camera and the lens that I bought as a kit instead of as separate items. B&H had no issue closing out the first order and creating a new one so I would qualify. They didn’t have to do it, but they made this customer very happy. [↩]

Went to B&H today. As was recommended to me I spoke with a guy named Gerry who worked with Nikons for many years.

He hasn’t seen a thing like this before, but he spent about 30 minutes listening to me and working on the issue with me. Eventually he brought over another body and a lens (same combo) and we easily replicated the problem.

So this is the conclusion. All Nikon (didn’t test the others) bodies seem to do it. Some choice of a test subject I had, eh?

I’m satisfied to know that my copy is perfectly fine. Huge props to B&H yet again for superior customer service.

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Well, I finally bit the bullet and pulled the trigger on D7001. Sounds painful, I know. But I’m happy that it finally happened. I’ve been saving up2 and waiting for this since the end of August.

I’ve done a LOT of reading and was convinced that my old trusty D70 was needed to be replaced and that Nikon D700 was my dream camera. There are multiple raving reviews all over the net. The camera has an amazing ISO performance and one of the best AF systems. A lot of that is contributed to by it’s full frame sensor3.

There are multiple other distinctions which are covered in numerousreviews, so I’m not going to go through the list. ISO and 51 AF points (as opposed to 5) were among the main reasons for me.

Initially I decided to wait for the next iteration of the camera. And then several weeks ago I saw a whole different perspective on the issue. The price has came down from $3,000 to $2,399. I think its safe to assume that the new one will be introduced at the same price point. Is there any new future that I would pay $600 more for? I can’t think of anything.

Video? Nice, but it would be 1 week of play for me and never would be used again. A second CF slot? Again, nice, but not $600 nice. Improved sensor from D3s? Again, nice, but not $600 nice. And resolution bump for sacrificed ISO performance? Would be a downer for me. I was happy with 6 mega-pixels, I sure will be happy with 12.

Either way the upgrade for me is huge and most of it is positive. The only negative is that the new combo is noticeably heavier and bigger then the old setup, but I’m more than happy to live with this trade off for all the benefits.

I also did buy a new “main” lens. The jump from DX to FX have rendered a pair of my lenses somewhat useless. Beside that my D70 kit lens was never anything to write home about. The new lens is one of the top Nikon lenses — Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED. According to reviews the lens is extremely sharp in all of its extremes and has very little distortion of any kind. After all, the body is going to only perform as nice as the glass attached to it.

In short, I’m very happy and very excited. Have a lot of learn about the new body, get rid of some of the habits that formed over the years with D70 and then have fun.

Great news dude, hope this powerhouse of a camera give you years of joy and creative brilliance. Btw, dibs on the “now useless” wide angle you have. I think i found a Nikon-Canon adapter, no AF, but for the money i’ll save, i’ll focus my self .

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Daniеl says:February 19, 2010 @ 13:43

Dude, I got dibs on wide-angle myself. If it was acting like 15mm on DX, it’s 10mm on this one. Even though there is a circle it sure produces interesting effects. It really is a fish-eye.

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Started thinking that it’s time I’ve replaced my trusty Nikon D70. It’s a great cam, but by now it’s antique. Can’t decide which one should be next — D300s or the next iteration of D700 (D700x?). Alёna opened up a new cam fund for me. October maybe?0

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I just love getting presents! This birthday has been especially good for my photography hobby. I got 2 great new lenses. One is a wide lens that I mentioned yesterday was given to my by Alёna, my parents and my sister Lina. Today I got another one. An awesome Sigma macro lens (check out the shot on top) from Eldar and Moisha! Last year was great as well, when I got a super zoom lens from Maruks for my birthday. Thank you, everybody!!!

Here’s my current list of lenses (all autofocus), listed in the order I got them:

That’s amazing. You should have posted that pic by itself and had ppl guess what it was for a few days. I thought it was alien crop circles on the moon. That would be a KILLER lens, if it took that. Some day…

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I wanted it for a long time now. Finally I have it. Bought it today at Best Buy.

The battery is charged. I took about 40 pictures of misc stuff already. It feels awsome.

A cool discovery: when you decrease the aperture the depth of focus increases.

The first picture is taken with aperture of f/5.6 and ISO 200. Second is taken with f/22 and ISO 800. The hairy cactus is focused on both of them, but on the second picture 3 other cactuses are also focused!